Category Archives: Aging

Substandard in My Dotage

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Well-dressed-older-women
     

Substandard in My Dotage

My body is substandard, defective, under par.
It does okay for walking if I don’t walk very far,
but at jogging mile after mile I would not be my best.
My left knee hath a hitch in it and so it doth protest.

And as for aesthetics, it takes no art detective
to discover all the many ways that I am  defective.
My skin is pale and blotchy and will not stay in place.
It sags here on my underarms and here below my face.

My fingernails are ridgy, my toes starting to curl.
Everything is different from when I was a girl.
And though I have less hair now in places where it’s been,
When I go in search of it, I find it on my chin.

Gravity has claimed those spots where once I was most perky.
That neck so firm and regal now resembles most a turkey.
The pounds that all my life I have been struggling to lose,
as by magnetism have settled where they choose.

Some ladies age most gracefully. I fear I am not one.
Of all the charms of aging I’ve not captured even one.
So I guess I’ll just dress funny with a little flair.
Put shadow on my eyelids and feathers in my hair.

I’ll jangle all my bracelets and put on all my rings.
I’ll give away old lady clothes and wear more stylish things.
At least I’ll finish my last yard with a little dash.
What I lack in all the rest I’ll make up with panache.

 

Substandard is the prompt word today. Photo borrowed from the Internet.      

Brick Wall

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cat·a·pult  : a device in which accumulated tension is suddenly
released to hurl an object some distance, in particular.

Brick Wall

Two times in the kitchen—hurrying like a fool.
One time on the terrace when I tripped over a stool.
Three times in the hall when I stumbled on the stair.
The wall my forehead hit each time needed no repair.
Not so my skull which needs new paradigms inside
of how to live my life by slowing down my stride.

I am scared of my subconscious—it’s refusing to be tamed.
If I do not learn its language, I’m afraid I’ll soon be maimed.
When steps and mops in pails and stools taught me not at all,
my stubborn subconscious launched me at a wall,
totalling my car—a frighteningly close call.

Bruised and sore, I hear the words  the doctor said,
“Take these pills two times a day and spend five days in bed.”
Six bad falls? One totalled car? I finally do the math.
Something wants to put obstacles in my path.
It says, “Take off the running shoes. Reduce those trips to town.
Loll around a few days more in your dressing gown.
Never do more than one thing. Give each thing its time.
To think I can do all of it is simply asinine.
Why do I think that I should be continually busy?
Why go up on ladders when I know it makes me dizzy?

The less I do it seems there are more I shouldn’t do’s.
Somedays it’s an adventure just locating my shoes
and cell phone and my glasses and finally, my keys.
Then I drive to town for broccoli and come home with blue cheese.
When did it get more difficult? It seems this is all new,
and yet I wrote about those falls a year ago or two.

A catapult propels one up over the wall
and over every obstacle that could cause a fall.
Why avoid the catapult? Why think that I should be
the person I was yesterday—that one no longer me?
Ironic that the catapult instructs me to slow down,
leave prat falls to the stunt man and the circus clown.
“Put some space around the things that you think you should do.
Take some time to hear what life’s trying to tell you.
All this beauty for your eyes yet often you don’t see it.
That same beauty within you waiting for you to be it.”

Catapult is the daily prompt, but this poem certainly also works for the prompt Reprieve.

Grandpa’s Lament

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Version 3

Grandpa’s Lament

Oh to be nimble, unfettered and young––
heedless, with yesterday’s breath on my tongue.
Scuffed shoes unpolished and hair all awry,
with nary a reason for white shirt or tie.

Chucking small stones, shooting rubber bands.
Gritty black fingernails, scandalous hands
sporting sand from the sandbox or silky black loam
from digging for earthworms or sliding on home.

I’d like to be lithesome and agile and spry––
a long life in front of me before I die;
but my years are numbered, my life’s nearly over.
Gone is my past as a rambler and rover.

I sit on my porch and watch younger men
take off for those places I’ve already been;
knowing my wild years are too far behind me.
I’m an Energizer bunny with no one to wind me.

Maddeningly, although I know I still dream, I forget them the moment my eyes open. Instead, I usually wake up with the first line of a poem on my mind. In this case, I used it as the second line of this morning’s poem.

Where Time Goes

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 Version 2

Where Time Goes 

They have not vanished without a trace.
Past years are written on your face.
They web your skin like finest lace,
its former smoothness to efface,
and write a story in its place.

The prompt today was replacement.

Everything Shall Fade Away

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How cruel of life at end of day
that all of us should fade away,
one head going hoary white,
ready to give up the fight
while all around it, fresher shoots
sturdier and less hirsute
push upward in the dawning morn,
the meadow to freshly adorn.

The prompt word today was “Faded.”

Approaching Seventy

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p9170193

Approaching Seventy

Careful near the pool edge, careful down the stair.
“Hurry” is disaster’s brand new nom de guerre.
All the things that in the past you might easily dare
are potential dangers hanging in the air;
so don’t stand on a ladder, or even worse, a chair.
It’s different being single than when you were a pair,
for there is no one  with you to see how you might fare.
When coming from the pool, be sure the shoes you wear
do not slip upon the tile–this is your worst nightmare.
If your feet are wet and if they’re also bare,
when you plug in your curling rod, I hope that you take care.
Although I know you’ve always been nimble as a hare,
things all change with age. I say this ’cause I care.
Bones become more breakable and muscles tend to tear,
so please take proper care, dear, in your single lair.
At seventy those second chances tend to be more rare.

Today’s prompt word was “Careful.”

Spending Time

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Spending Time

What do you value most, my friend? What carries you through life?
Have you friends and children? A husband or a wife?
If what we find of value in all the world contains
all we carry with us when youth and vigor wanes,
would you choose a portrait of all that you have had
that points your view toward happier times as the world turns sad,
or would you choose a camera that points you at the world––
all these younger lives than yours, about to come unfurled?
Whatever gives us life at first, then takes it all away
really only gives us what we have today
to value and make use of. So I want to be bolder,
looking straight ahead of me and not over my shoulder.
Though every hour has value, and every second in it,
the only time we have to spend is the coming minute.

The prompt word today is “value.”

Fragile

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Version 5

!!!Fragile!!!

Just as I’m becoming less agile,
all of me is turning fragile.

Flesh on flesh and bone on bone,
Nature won’t leave me alone.

Bruise more easily, skin tears easier.
Looking up now makes me queasier.

Can’t be trusted on a ladder.
Larger hips but smaller bladder.

Lips are thinner, bones are brittler.
And suddenly, I’m two inches littler.

If Nature’s bound to fold and shrink me,
Really, now, wouldn’t you think she

could leave me with my height and lips
and do her shrinking around my hips?

The prompt today is “Fragile.” 

On the Stump

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On the Stump

Hobbling around on the stump of a life,
nobody’s lover and nobody’s wife,
her children and grandchildren all raised and grown,
out of her life and out on their own.

Is her life over? Is it near its ending,
or has she another life that is just pending?
Has she a talent for regeneration?
Is the first sixty years mere education?

A single shoe dropped is only one shoe.
Life isn’t over until it is through.
Perhaps she’s less active removed from the past,
but wind can still fill out a sail at half mast.

The stub of a life can still get us around.
A heart can still beat and the blood can still pound.
Go after adventure for all you are worth,
for every new day is a part of your birth.

 

The prompt word today was “stump,” and I must admit it nearly stumped me. Lately my poems have degenerated into moralistic little lesson-rhymes. I may seem to be up on the stump, but it it is not my intention to preach as it is mainly myself I’m trying to advise. If you want to listen in, you are most welcome.

 

 

 

Midnight Minuet

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DSC09523
Midnight Minuet

Sneaking down the unlit hall,
we take turns answering nature’s call,
awaiting our own turn to sneak
to the john to have a leak.

In the darkness, we repeat
this rather tricky hourly feat.
Him, then her, then me at last.
So are our nightly ramblings cast.

It is not choice that brings us here
to void ourselves of pop or beer.
In fact, a full night’s sleep we seek—
our intentions strong, but bladders weak.

At eleven, twelve and one and two,
sleeping is what we’d rather do.
Instead, we do-si-do—just missing
the next sojourner bent on pissing!

 

This poem is dedicated to all of those over sixty who find themselves taking more nightly journeys down the hall than in the past. Perhaps, like me, you are a houseguest. If so, there is no avoiding the nocturnal shuffle if your hosts, like you, are of a certain age.